• Battered and Ink-Stained

    02 Sep 2021 » 3 min read

    Sometimes it is hard to remember what I have written here and what I haven’t. Yesterday, for instance, my friend Mike asked how I carry around my notebook and pen. In my reply, I joked that my answer deserved a post of its own. Then I got to thinking it wasn’t really a joke. I…

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  • Why Do People Hate Ted Lasso?

    01 Sep 2021 » 3 min read

    I’m late to the party, but I recently watched the first season of Ted Lasso, and the first six episodes of the second season of the show, and I’ve got to say, it’s one of the best shows I’ve seen on television in a while. And yet, I’ve been seeing articles that suddenly, everyone hates…

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  • The Measure of the Blog’s Success

    31 Aug 2021 » 3 min read

    When I began writing here everyday again back on January 1, 2021, the blog was at a low point. Readership had dwindled down from highs of more than 120,000 views per month to a small fraction of that. Posts dwindled as well. Last year saw about 51 posts. By comparison, the first eight months of…

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  • The Little Man Cooks Dinner

    30 Aug 2021 » 1 min read

    Yesterday, Zach, the Little Man, decided he wanted to cook dinner for everyone. He decided he wanted to make salmon, french fries, and asparagus. And you know what? He did, and it came out fantastic. He did the entire affair himself with two exception which I stepped in to help. He walked to our local…

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  • The Importance of Writing It Down

    30 Aug 2021 » 4 min read

    My morning routine was a little out of whack yesterday. On Saturday, we made a long day trip to Lancaster, PA, about a 2-1/2 hour drive north. We spent the day at an amusement park for the Littlest Miss’s birthday. We left the house at 8 am on Saturday and were home just before 10…

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  • Back to School

    29 Aug 2021 » 3 min read

    This was a busy week. We attended three open houses at our local elementary and middle schools. We met our kids’ teachers, saw their classrooms, lugged supplies to their desks and cubbies. The Little Man, Zach, who is now entering 7th grade, got his first locker1. We made sure he tested out his combination twice.…

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  • Thoughts on The Big Roads by Earl Swift

    28 Aug 2021 » 4 min read about reviews

    When I use something, I like to know about it. I’m interested in the history of things and how they came to be. I’ve used computers for decades, but only recently spent a month or so reading in earnest on the history of computing. I’ve used newspapers for nearly as long, and have always been…

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  • The List That Never Ends

    27 Aug 2021 » 5 min read

    Eventually, school ends. Workdays come to a close. Vacations last only so long. Careers wind down. But things to do around the house last forever, it seems. I sometimes wonder if you took the sum total of the time that there was nothing that needed to be done around the house, and compared it to…

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  • A Revolutionary Cemetery

    26 Aug 2021 » 4 min read

    Across the street from our house in Warwick, Rhode Island, beyond the backyard of our neighbors, an old cemetery was perched atop a small hill. The cemetery was surrounded by a low stone wall. A rusty iron gate opened into the cemetery on one side of the wall, but I never remember using the gate.…

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  • My Grandfather at 101

    25 Aug 2021 » 3 min read

    One of the things I missed noting here on the blog last year was that August 25, 2020 would have been my grandfather’s 100th birthday. I missed it because I wasn’t writing much at the time. Indeed, the only post I wrote last August was on COVID conversations. That means today, August 25, 2021, my…

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